Last Voyage of the Demeter: Liam Cunningham aka Ser Davos sets sail again, with Dracula rather than dragons

Liam Cunningham, who played Ser Davos Seaworth (aka everyone’s favorite onion knight) on HBO's Game of Thrones is heading back to the high seas. Amblin Partners announced today that Cunningham is one of several new cast members boarding the upcoming horror feature, The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is based on one chapter from Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula, about the doomed journey of the sailing ship, Demeter. The script, written by Zak Olkewicz, chronicles Demeter’s journey from Carpathia to London after taking on some mysterious cargo. The cargo (spoiler warning for a 100-plus-year-old book!) holds none other than Dracula himself, and the crew are stalked/eaten each night until none of them are alive when it pulls into England’s Whitby Harbour.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark director André Øvredal was already on board to direct the film, with In the Heights star Corey Hawkins on board as the lead. Ser Davos... er... Cunningham will be playing the ship’s stately captain, Captain Eliot.  

Other new cast members include David Dastmalchian (aka Polka-Dot Man in James Gunn’s upcoming The Suicide Squad), who will play Wojchek, the Demeter’s first mate; Aisling Franciosi as the stowaway, Anna; Jon Jon Briones as the ship’s cook, Joseph; Stefan Kapicic as crew member Olgaren; and Nikolai Nikolaeff as crew member, Petrofsky.

And then there’s Dracula himself, who will be played by Slender Man’s Javier Botet. Botet, best known for playing otherworldly creatures, also has a Game of Thrones connection — he played one of the wights in the Season 8 episode, “The Long Night.”

This isn’t the first time The Last Voyage of the Demeter has sailed its way toward production. Among other efforts dating back some two decades, Amblin also had a 2012 version of the story with Black Mirror director David Slade at the helm and Ben Kingsley and Noomi Rapace on board as cast. That version ultimately sunk.

But now it's a completely new creative team setting sail, as the latest reboot effort has just started shooting in Berlin. Given production is underway in Berlin and, eventually, in Malta as well, there’s a much better chance this version of The Last Voyage will make it to the end. We can’t say the same thing, sadly, for Demeter’s doomed crew.